Successful People Are Not Just Lucky

Successful people are not just lucky. Successful careers don't just happen. Success is something that is planned. Successful careers are lived by people, just like you and me, who take stock of their unique value and their surroundings, and take charge of their choices. For this approach to work for you, a clear, well-defined career plan is essential. Making a career plan that is personalized and solely yours also requires involvement by you. You will create your career plan, work on your career plan, and most importantly, make decisions about opportunities based on your career plan – for the life of your career. But first, YOU must become personally involved and invested in how your career moves.

Preparation meeting opportunity is not the same as luck. It's easy to say that successful people are just lucky. After all if it's all just about luck, then you're not responsible when it doesn't work out. Is this how you think? I challenge you to work with what you know. I know from personal experience that what passes for luck in some circles, is really preparation meeting opportunity. When opportunity comes along, a choice will be demanded of you. Successful people may look lucky, but because they have prepared themselves by developing a career plan which includes short, mid and long-range goals, they are able to make a clear, thoughtful decision about each and every opportunity. They are those professionals who purposely and deliberately decide to walk away from a well-paying job to accept a more favorable option not for the money, but because it moves them closer to their stated career goal. Successful people are able to make wise choices about the new opportunity, the organization, and other factors because they know where they are going and how this opportunity fits into their plan. Can you – right now – make that type of critical decision about any opportunity? If not, what are you doing to change this answer to a yes? How can you develop your own unique career plan?

Take your own career personally. The first and most important step is to get involved in your own success. After all, if you don't care, why should anyone else care about your goals? Decide to pursue a career that enriches your own life – not just financially – but in other intangible ways. Focus your education and energy towards doing something profitable with your knowledge and showcasing your own unique value. Pursue your own career goals with the energy and passion to succeed – not just once, or occasionally, but every day. These simple three steps are the first small steps in a successful career. Take up whatever cause that you believe in, but occupy your own life and career as your first priority. Simply put, success requires commitment from you. Check back to read my posting on writing a career plan that works.

Creating a Career Plan That Works – Part 2

Completing your Professional Vision Statement is only the beginning. Once you have finished defining your dream job, you are ready to move on to your Professional Mission Statement . First, break down your career plans into two segments: short-term professional goals that will be completed within the next three years, and long-term professional goals that you plan to complete beyond 3 years. Be sure to include educational and skills development, internships, experience requirements, and personal goals that effect your career in this plan. The benefit of creating discreet milestones is that you will find it easy to establish priorities, assess your progress, and be prepared to seize an opportunity when it is presented to you. Remember, successful people are not just lucky. It's preparation meeting opportunity. (Read this article and others by selecting the Kelley's article tab on the Home Page.)

Second, be realistic and do your research. For any plan to work, it must be rooted in reality. Know what experience, education, and skills are essential for success. If you are too optimistic with your timelines, you will never enjoy success in achieving your goals. You will miss your key milestones and begin to believe that this plan will never work. And you'd be right...at least with overly aggressive timelines. On the other hand, don't be too generous with your timelines either. Resist the urge to move what you can accomplish in the short-term to your long-term timeframe.

Let me say a bit about the exactness required for planning purposes. I strongly urge you to do a sufficient amount of research, direct and indirect, to fully understand the requirements for success in your chosen career. However, precision is extremely important for the short-term goals, especially those goals that are will be completed in the coming 12 to 18 months. Long-term goals only need to be "directionally right" – in other words, moving you in the right direction. Why? It's simply a matter of time – for as time moves by, your long-term goals will become your short-term goals and you will establish new long-term professional goals. As you regularly review your career plan, you will reassess the exactness of each long-term milestone and make needed adjustments as technology or other market pressures change what is required for success in your chosen career. So focus on being as precise as possible when writing your short-term professional goals, and focus on being directionally right when setting your long-term professional goals.

Building your unique professional brand starts with a robust and thorough career plan. The harsh reality is that time marches on and you will be older in two years. So why not be two years closer to achieving your goals? Begin today on writing career plan that works for you.

1 A New Brand You Workbook – ForProfessional Brand and Career Maintenance, page 24~25

Creating a Career Plan That Works – Part 1

Knowing where you are going in your career requires a roadmap or plan. Makes sense, right? So, how do you start? First, define what you ultimately want to accomplish. This is your dream of who and where you want to be and what you want to be doing. This is known as your Professional Vision Statement and is expressed in a clear, concise sentence or two that best and most quickly communicates your ultimate professional dream. As a dream, this goal is by definition almost unattainable. Think of your dream job as the engine that will drive you forward. That's why I recommend you are big and bold in your thinking. By being fearless in defining your career success, you will naturally push yourself further than if you are timid in setting long-range career goals. I find that just declaring your career dream (if only on paper) will naturally propel you forward in your achieving your goal.

Knowing what should be your career dream can be challenging. Remember the what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up question everyone asked when you were 5-years-old? Well, it's time to have an answer. For some, they've always known what they wanted to do, so the answer to this question is easy. For the rest, this can be seen as such a daunting task that you never create a career plan. That is the wrong response. As with so many challenges in life, you just need to break the process down to smaller pieces. Ask yourself: What you are good at? What do you like to do? What jobs, internships, or experience do you really enjoy? What education do you have? What is your personality best suited for? What types of careers require these aptitudes, education, personality type, and passion?

Do research on yourself. Even if you are confident in your dream job, try taking an online personality test to assist you in this process. A free tool I've used, the Jung Typology Test, is available at www.humanmetrics.com. Based on these four criteria - Introvert, Sensing, Thinking, Judging or INTJ – the results will offer you important insights into the types of career choices that are well-suited for your personality type. Be sure to print your results before exiting the website since no one's answers are stored.

Be bold and dream big. This is the first important step. Next, I will walk you through the rest of the steps in completing a robust, well-defined career plan that will assist you for the life of your career.

A New Brand You Workbook – For Professional Brand and Career Maintenance, page 24.